A united push for change (Part 2 of 2)

The rise of authoritarian forces worldwide has made asserting basic human and democratic rights even more difficult, if not outright dangerous, in the time of COVID-19. Across Asia, authoritarian leaders took advantage of the pandemic to stamp out the embers of democracy, with human rights becoming their prime casualty.

“Around the region, the pandemic has become a pretext of some states, especially those ruled by tyrants, populists, and juntas, to crack down on peaceful dissent and further contract already-shrinking civic spaces, dialogue, and civic engagement,” said Gus Miclat, executive director at the Initiatives for International Dialogue, at the general assembly conducted by the Asia Democracy Network (ADN) late last year.

But that brutal push against rights has failed to stop our fighters on the frontline. During the ADN assembly, activists, advocates, and human rights defenders of all stripes came together to affirm their strong and collective desire to stand their ground and reclaim the civic spaces that 2021 took from them.

“It’s time for us to recapture our energies to keep that claim of resistance amongst us,” said Dr. Nimalka Fernando, president of the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism. “Our lives have to be attached to the clarion call for democracy, and to rule of law, to the right to life, gender justice, and environmental protection in Asia.”

And indeed, for many defenders of democracy, the year that was presented an opportunity to rise to the occasion and assert their rights. Just as 2021 was marked by loss and crises, it also witnessed several groundbreaking triumphs.

In December, after more than a year of massive mobilization, India’s farmers claimed victory: In the face of overwhelming clamor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had no choice but to repeal three controversial farm laws. Just a few months earlier, public school teachers in Sri Lanka flooded the streets calling for higher wages — even despite threats from both the virus and their own government.

Maria Ressa — a prominent press figure in the Philippines and a symbol of courage amid unrelenting legal and rhetorical attacks from President Rodrigo Duterte — was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, further galvanizing media organizations in the region. In South Korea, where deeply entrenched misogyny is rearing its ugly head anew, women are standing their ground.

During the ADN assembly, these triumphs served as inspiration for the attending organizations, forming their guiding principles for the coming year: courage, focus, and unity. Courage to hold fast to their principles despite threats and maybe even outright violence. Focus to make sure that energy and resources are being invested in the most pressing, most appropriate concerns.

Most importantly, to strengthen and to forge new unities in the face of an increasingly powerful threat to democracy and human rights.

Preemption, pressure, partnerships

One of the most worrying ways in which democracy is being eroded is through the creation and weaponization of draconian laws to constrain civic space. Governments, as promulgators and arbiters of the law, often pervert laws and judicial procedures to maintain a firm grasp on power, usually using the guise of national security.

But even as these laws give outsized power to governments, typically through broad, sweeping language and too-steep penalties, human rights defenders are not powerless against them. The answer, according to attendees of the ADN assembly, boils down to three P’s: preemption, pressure, and partnerships.

Take Thailand, for example. A draft law banning torture and enforced disappearances is moving through the legislative process anew. Previous attempts to pass such a law — one in 2016 and another in 2018 — ended in vain, falling victim to a military regime.

But in 2021, civil society organizations in Thailand campaigned hard for an anti-torture law, lobbying parties from all across the political spectrum, and even drafting their own version of the legislation, in accordance with international standards.

To apply pressure, local groups partnered with regional and global organizations, which helped them urge lawmakers to invest attention and resources into an anti-torture law. There was an upcoming Universal Period Review, but the UN Human Rights Council made the matter even more urgent.

The hope is that this approach could be replicated elsewhere and regarding other issues. International collaboration, after all, isn’t only valuable for applying political pressure, but also for capacitating and supporting local groups that usually receive the brunt of their government’s fury. This is especially true in light of emerging tech and surveillance issues, which have become all the more pressing during the pandemic.

Across Asia, in an effort to cut networks of COVID-19 transmission, governments have deployed different methods of contact tracing, the most common of which is through the use of an app. But cybersecurity and digital privacy advocates have been ringing alarm bells and flagging notable weaknesses in these apps, including terms and conditions that are stacked against the user, the lack of transparency over which data will be collected and how these will be handled, and their susceptibility to hacking.

Unfortunately, local civil society and media groups, often underfunded and short-staffed, usually do not have the technical capabilities to deal with sophisticated surveillance, further highlighting the importance of cross-border collaboration and partnerships.

Courage and cooperation

The mounting systemic and legal assault on civic space has also curtailed the space for free speech and free thought. This is aggravated even further by a ruthless clampdown on the press, especially on alternative and local media, as well as increasing state intervention on the academe.

Schools and universities, supposedly safe spaces for even the most critical strands of academic thought, have become muzzled, with governments increasingly exerting control over their curricula.

“The most serious example is Hong Kong,” said Maiko Ichihara, associate professor at Hitotsubashi University in Japan. “Freedom of speech in educational institutions has been taken away, making it impossible to conduct critical analysis which is an essential component for liberal democracy.”

Ichihara also pointed out that post-coup, several schools in Myanmar have been shut down as well. Those that continue to operate do so under the fear of redress from military leaders if they so dare teach values that the Tatmadaw deems improper.

Compounding the situation is a general air of complacency in academia, which has gotten a bit comfortable doing research principally as an intellectual exercise and is generally averse against policy-oriented work. But amid such attacks on the freedom of thought, academia may not have this luxury for long.

Ichihara recommends courage. Rather than shy away from a think-tank role, she said, educational institutions should embrace their power to sway public opinion or push for policy changes. They should also make sure that a portion of the research they produce is of practical and immediate value to the target beneficiaries, she added. Writing their papers in accessible and locally understandable language is one way to achieve that.

Moreover, said Ichihara, Asia’s academia needs to move beyond its established silos and connect with other civil society organizations, advocacy, and media groups, or even just other academic institutions.

“For example, there’s an international network called Scholars at Risk whose member institutions accept scholars who face repression abroad, in order to help and protect them,” she said. “Embarrassingly, however, with the sole exception of the American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan, there is no Asian academic institution among its members.”

Establishing a similar network among Asian centers would be of great help in protecting the sanctity of free thought. And for Tess Bacalla, editor-in-chief of ADN’s Asia Democracy Chronicles, the region’s media could do well to have such a network, too. Just like in the academic community, courage and cooperation are crucial for media to have a strong response to the growing attacks on free speech, she argued.

For sure, many members of the media are not short of courage. Bacalla noted that despite having very little to no institutional support as regards personal protective equipment or cyber security, “many journalists — though very mindful of the risks to their physical well-being, their lives, the risks of legal repression — are still going about their jobs and coming up with stories that are so vital for the public to know.”

Missing link(s)

But of course, such individual bravery can only take a reporter so far. The key, Bacalla said, is in collaborative action.

“There’s a lot of collaboration happening among CSOs, but where CSOs and media are involved — I’m not sure there’s much effort along these lines,” she said, adding that the same goes for academic institutions. “They have a lot of data, they have a lot of research, initiatives are ongoing, but how much of this is being used and being made public to make people aware of important issues?”

The other attendees at ADN’s assembly agreed: Forging unities is indeed important — but is much easier said than done.

In Asia in particular, solidarity is always existent but is also always in flux. In times of struggle, groups band together but dissolve when the goal has been achieved. There needs to be a regional mechanism that oversees the formation of these unities and makes sure that they are sustained.

Such a large, cross-border organization, however, would likely face difficulties in narrowing down their work to local contexts and might find it hard to effect direct impact at the ground level.

Some coalitions, despite being formed specifically with the intent of uniting different groups, also tend to exclude more radical, left-of-center groups. Many times, these alliances also have the tendency to speak for and over the communities that they try to represent, instead of centering their voices.

But despite these challenges, the best way to deal with the worrying rise of authoritarian power is to build lasting and sustainable cooperation across different sectors: the media, civil society organizations, academia, and other democratic institutions. Such a partnership would be in everyone’s best interests.

“We have some shared challenges, we have some shared objectives,” Bacalla said, underlining the wisdom behind unity. “What are our points of convergence for collaboration? Where can we come together?” ●

Tristan Manalac is an independent journalist from the Philippines, focusing on health and medicine, the environment, and science. After a brief stint as a research scientist, he traded the sterile walls of a laboratory for the chaos of the newsroom.

Read Part 1: The year that was: Human rights and democracy in freefall